Santosh Chandra and Rathindranath

Srish Chandra was a friend of Rabindranath Tagore. His son Santosh Chandra Majumdar went to America with Rathindranath. But he did not return to India along with Rathindranath. He came to India via Japan in the month of Paush (Dec 1909).When he was living in America, his father died on 8 Nov, 1908 and as an eldest son he had to take the responsibility of the whole family. Considering the tendency of a Bengali family it was natural that he would take a service . He also get two or three proposal from some business men to run a factory keeping him in the post of a manager. But Santosh Chandra decided to open a dairy for producing milk at Santiniketan.  Rabindranath became encouraged at this news since  at the very beginning of the school at Santiniketan, there was a scarcity of milk for students. He wrote to Nagendranath on 14th March,
"Santosh is openning a small dairy at Santiniketan with 4/5 cows. But in Bolpur it was very difficult to maintain a dairy for want of grass and other feeding materials were to be brought from a long distance. But still there was no possibility of any loss. If it was possible to keep at least ten more cows then it was sure to get a profit of 150/200 rupees only pm after expenses. To my opinion, dairy is more profitable than farming in our country. In our country dairy of cows is one of the essential factor. In all villages in Bengal, availablity of milk is rare and costly. Bengalees cannot prosper by simply eating spices with water."
Prof. Prasanta Kumar Paul said that Rabindranath was in the habit of making an ideal of a plan he liked. He wrote to Rathindranath,
" To get his niece married with Santosh, Upendra Nath Sen became eager. He has thrown the proposal to me. If he marry according to this proposal he will get 8-10 thousand rupees for his business. One day I asked Santosh about this proposal. But he was hesitant to say yes or no. " He added in this letter,
" I'm sure Santosh may get a orofit of Rs,200/- only pm, then what is the necessity of getting a service ?"

But the relatives of Santosh thought otherwise. They thoght that it was a plan to arrest Santosh. Still he tried to get through the proposal with utmost care. He wrote to Bhupendranath Sanyal on 2nd April,
" Santosh has bought 5 cows with rupees 1000./- only to feed the students of Santiniketan with milk. But here straw is costly. If it is available at a cheaper rate at your place, which we may  bring with your help. Cow-man is not also available here.At least two cow-men we require."
He also wrote to Charuchandra Bandyopadhyay on 17 Jan 1910,
"Have you written anything to Chintamani (Ghosh)? We want those. We have no objection to purchase one truck of goats."
 But Rabindranath put an objection to Rathindranath and Pramodh when they wanted to organise a dairy after collecting huge amount of capital and rembering his previous experience he wrote,
"Do you think that you will get larger success by arranging in huge pomp and grandeur. When I was in city within the locality, I had similar ideas. But I was befooled. I have seen many organisations with huge arrangements and pomp and grandeur-I had  undergone heavy loss by organising a National Shop- at last I made a loan of 1000/- rupees. I feel ashamed when we see disaster of the National Education Federation. Now I understand the reasons behind it. Now I think huge success comes after small openning, gradually developing out of the sight of people.
In 1895, Rabindranth had undergone huge loss by going to organise Thakur Company. During the movement of Division of Bengal  he wrote the song, "Yadi tor dak sune keu na ase to, ekla chalo re".
He put an objection to his son of organising a Dairy with huge arrangement."